Netanyahu, Gallant ‘must pay price’ for Gaza war crimes: Israeli party

By Abdelraouf Arnaout

JERUSALEM (AA) - An Arab-Jewish party in the Israeli Knesset (parliament) hailed the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip following a Hamas attack last year, killing more than 44,000 people, most of them women and children, and injuring over 104,000.

The second year of genocide in Gaza has drawn growing international condemnation, with figures and institutions labeling the attacks and blocking of aid deliveries as a deliberate attempt to destroy a population.

“The ICC ruled according to clear evidence - Israel's war in Gaza is a sequence of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality said in a statement.

“Netanyahu and Gallant are responsible for the total destruction of Gaza and the mass murder of its civilians. They must pay a price,” it added.

The Israeli party, which holds five seats in the 120-seat Knesset, criticized Tel Aviv’s ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

“The forever war does not only destroy Gaza and Lebanon, exclude the right of self-determination from the Palestinian people, and rack the Israeli society, but it also turns Israel into a criminal pariah state,” it said.

“For the future of both peoples, the war must end now. It is time to bring down the government, change course, and strive for an end to the occupation and a political settlement,” it added.

Party member Ofer Cassif, for his part, called Netanyahu’s government “criminal.”

“The truth cannot be hidden forever, even if the opposition pathetically joins forces with the criminal government and uses the worn-out and deceptive slogan: “antisemitism,” he said on X.

The ICC arrest warrants drew fire from both Israeli government ministers and opposition leaders, with Netanyahu calling the verdict “antisemitic, and politically biased.”

In a landmark move, the ICC on Thursday announced it had issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant over war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

The court’s Pre-Trial Chamber I said it “issued warrants of arrest for two individuals, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024, the day the Prosecution filed the applications for warrants of arrest.”

“The Chamber considered that there are reasonable grounds to believe that both individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity,” the decision said.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio

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